Museum Merger Takes Step Closer to Reality

A controversial campaign to merge Orange County’s leading art museums into a higher-profile, financially stable Orange County Museum of Art took its most significant step Thursday when one museum won a crucial membership vote and the other’s trustees approved an essential amendment to the plan.

“Nothing will stand in the way now,” said David Emmes II, the Laguna Art Museum’s point man in the effort to merge with the Newport Harbor Art Museum of Newport Beach.

“This is a big milestone in the development of the cultural infrastructure of Orange County,” said Charles D. Martin, a Newport Harbor trustee who will chair the new institution.

“It’s been a long haul,” said Gilbert LeVasseur, the Laguna board president who with Martin was the merger’s prime architect.

Though the Laguna museum’s 1,383 rank-and-file members have until Saturday to ratify or reject the merger, Emmes said more than 1,000 of their mail-in ballots have been counted and the votes are running 60% in favor of consolidation--enough to guarantee approval.

Meanwhile, Newport Harbor’s board voted Thursday to accept an agreement that the Laguna board struck with its members to keep their landmark museum building open as a semi-autonomous branch of the new institution.

Martin said Newport Harbor’s acceptance is subject to resolution of what he called minor technical issues that were unlikely to stop the merger. He added that approval had been by a “substantial majority.”

The Laguna agreement, and a resulting change in some Laguna bylaws, still have to be approved formally by the Laguna membership. But Emmes said he expects quick passage. Ballots will be sent to members Monday to be returned in three weeks.

Then, if the state attorney general approves the merger--which Martin says he expects within 60 days--the new museum will open, with headquarters at the current Newport Harbor site in Fashion Island. The Laguna satellite gallery at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa also will remain open.

Merger proponents--who have argued that without consolidation, the Laguna museum might not be able to stay afloat--now say that someday they might like to build a new home in the South Coast Metro area where it would be a visual arts equivalent to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, commanding enough space to show the cream of the art world’s touring exhibits.

According to sources, developer Henry Segerstrom--whose family partnership donated the land for the Performing Arts Center--already has met with an architect to discuss a joint facility to include the museum and a new center concert hall. However, museum officials said they have not been contacted by Segerstrom, who did not return calls from The Times. Martin said no decisions regarding a future site have been made and that a planning committee will be formed.

Laguna and Newport Harbor trustees acknowledge that there is still some opposition to the merger: A newly-formed group called Motivated Museum Members in Laguna Beach has written to the attorney general protesting the move as “ethically and legally” wrong, according to organizer Vern Spitaleri. “We have a number of good, solid legal grounds, according to counsel, to press litigation near-term and long-term,” Spitaleri said Wednesday.

But trustees of both museums are dismissing the group, with Emmes on Thursday calling them “misinformed extremists who do not have the best interest of the museum at heart,” even though some are longtime museum members.

The Laguna museum has focused on historical and contemporary art of California; Newport Harbor has gathered California art of the post-war era. The merger will combine the collections into a showcase for California art from the late 19th century to the present.

If everything continues as planned, the museums’ staffs will move into the former library next door to Newport Harbor “fairly promptly,” according to Newport Harbor board president James V. Selna. Trustees had planned to reduce costs by trimming the combined staffs, but at least five employees have resigned recently, so the question of layoffs remains open, Martin said. Each museum’s chief curator may be retained, he added, now that it appears that the Laguna museum will stay open.

In any case, combined operating expenses should drop from about $2.2 million to about $2 million, Martin said. He acknowledged that the savings is minimal but said the new budget creates greater financial stability by “doubling the resources” of either museum--which he expects will attract more individual and corporate donors.

The Newport Harbor museum building will be closed from June to November for the first part of a renovation to convert the entire facility into galleries.

The Laguna museum will continue to present previously scheduled exhibits for about a year before moving its shows to Fashion Island. However, Laguna’s announced exhibits are subject to change, Emmes said, because of the museum’s still-precarious financial condition.

The Orange County Museum of Art will be led by Naomi Vine, the current director of the Laguna Art Museum. Newport Harbor director Michael Botwinick had announced that he was not a candidate for the position.

The Newport Harbor and Laguna boards approved the merger proposal in February after years of on-and-off discussions in which consolidation was touted as a route to greater visibility; increased space to accommodate traveling exhibitions along with the museums’ own collections; and financial security. Newport Harbor had also been troubled by eight consecutive years of losses, Martin said.

Proponents painted a grand vision of a showplace that would attract hefty donations of cash and art. But a Laguna museum bylaw required the proposal to be ratified by Laguna members, many of whom did not want to see the 78-year-old institution leave town.

Soon, a group of members, local artists and Laguna Beach residents gathered as SLAM (Save Laguna Art Museum) to picket the museum, threatening to recall the Laguna museum trustees for trying to steal the “heart and soul” of the city.

So a compromise--the plan approved by the Newport Harbor board on Thursday--was reached to keep the Laguna museum building open for at least 80 years, staffed by the newly-merged museum, with programming subject to approval by a nonprofit Laguna Art Museum Heritage Corporation that would include SLAM members.

At least one SLAM member, Laguna gallery owner Stuart Katz, greeted Thursday’s news with his own victory declaration: “We have saved the Laguna Art Museum.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LAM + NHAM = OCMA

The new Orange County Art Museum will be created through a merger of the Laguna and Newport Harbor art museums. A profile of the new museum:

* Location: Current Newport Harbor Art Museum building, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

* Branches: Current Laguna Art Museum building (307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach), where focus will be on art of Southern California; Laguna’s current satellite gallery in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, where the focus will be on education

* Focus: Broad-based, with emphasis on historical and contemporary California art

* Permanent collection: 6,160 items (Laguna’s 3,800 and Newport Harbor’s 2,360)

* Director: Current Laguna director Naomi Vine

* Full-time staff: 26 (full Laguna and Newport Harbor staffs of 13 each)

* Board president: Charles D. Martin, venture capitalist, current Newport Harbor trustee

* Board members: 62 (full membership of Laguna [24] and Newport Harbor boards [38])

* Membership: 2,983 (Laguna’s 1,733 and Newport Harbor’s 1,250 members automatically become members of OCMA)

* Projected annual budget: $2 million (down from the $2.2-million combined budget of the two former museums)

Source: Newport Harbor and Laguna Art Museums; Researched by ZAN DUBIN / Los Angeles Times